Appendix SUMMARY OF PRESENTATIONS BY, AND EXCHANGE OF VIEWS WITH, EXPERTS OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE ACTING IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY 1. Mr. Rajsoomer Lallah noted that, while the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights did not cover all the provisions contained in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, articles 2 and 3 of the Covenant dealt with equality and non-discrimination in the enjoyment of the rights recognized in the Covenant, and article 26 dealt with equality before the law and equal protection of the law. There were currently 87 States parties to the first Optional Protocol. 2. Mr. Lallah reviewed the two stages of the consideration of a communication, namely the determination of admissibility and the procedure on the merits of a case. In referring to specific provisions contained in the first Optional Protocol, he pointed to their progressive development through the Committee’s practice, including matters such as the exhaustion of domestic remedies, the question of standing, interim measures and the follow-up to decisions taken on the merits of a case. He discussed the written nature of the procedure and admissible sources of information, the lack of any investigative power of the Committee, and the treaty obligation of States parties to remedy violations, notwithstanding the absence of mandatory power in the Committee’s views. He reviewed selected cases that the Human Rights Committee had dealt with under article 26, noting that the Committee had found that article 26 established a basic right to equality before the law, which was not restricted to the rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. While conflicts in adjudication between different procedures could be avoided through the establishment of admissibility criteria, some overlapping might, however, not be wholly undesirable. 3. Ms. Cecilia Medina Quiroga and Mr. Fausto Pocar, speaking on the question of justiciability, noted that the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women could, under an optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, build on the jurisprudence already developed by the Human Rights Committee. They agreed that, as the Convention itself was based on the principles of non-discrimination and equality, all its other provisions could be linked back to these principles. As the non-discrimination provision was recognized as justiciable and subject to meaningful scrutiny by treaty bodies, they considered all the provisions of the Convention to be justiciable. They agreed that some of the Convention’s provisions, including the requirement that States parties take appropriate measures, might lead to certain difficulties in assessing compliance. They stressed that a decision on the justiciability of a provision should be left to the Committee, taking into consideration a State party’s obligations to implement its treaty obligations in good faith, and in a reasonable way. Both experts strongly cautioned against any a priori classification of rights into justiciable and non-justiciable. 4. Furthermore, it was pointed out that no clear line could be drawn between justiciable and non-justiciable provisions. As shown by the examples of a number of articles in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, justiciability of a treaty provision was also a question of degree. A number of the Covenant’s provisions required a State party not only to respect a right, -124-